The present invention relates to a supporting arrangement for charging a closed chamber with goods, said supporting arrangement being movable into a swung-out position.
Supporting arrangements of the kind referred to are known to be used in connection with kitchen equipment, such as kitchen cabinets, dishwashing machines and ovens. In this connection said kitchen equipment is of the kind that could be defined as front loaded equipment. Accordingly, there is provided an openable front door through which the supporting arrangement disposed in the chamber of the kitchen equipment can be swung-out by means of linkages each of which being journalled in a respective one of two opposite side walls.
DE-A1-39 30 609 describes a lowerable shelf arrangement for kitchen machines and the like, said shelf arrangement comprising a wall-mounted load carrying shelf plane which can be lowered, by means of a parallelogram type linkage, from a storage level and into a level corresponding to normal working height. The linkage, which is actuated manually, comprises a control cam which cooperates with a control roller supported by a control arm. The known arrangement is under influence of a compression spring and includes a damping member. No information is given as to the use of the load carrying shelf plane in a kitchen cabinet or the like but if put in a cabinet-like space said space has to be provided with a front door in order for the lowering movement of the shelf plane to become possible. The resulting arrangement would be an arrangement similar to that disclosed in DE-A1-29 19 610.
Further examples on household ovens comprising a retractable supporting arrangement are given e.g. in U.S. Pat. No. 1,994,227, U.S. Pat. No. 2,069,706, U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,146, DE-A1-26 11 461 and EP-A3-0 147 815. All these ovens have in common that they are front loaded, i.e. charging takes place via a door at the front surface of the oven. In spite of the fact that maneuvering takes place by means of a linkage, normally, the supporting arrangement performs only a linear displacement movement from/to the oven cavity.
However, U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,146, referred to above, relates to a floor-mounted cooker including an oven the supporting arrangement of which is operated by means of a link arms so that it can be inserted and retracted through a front door, wherein, by means of said link arms it becomes possible to raise the supporting arrangement, and an insert associated therewith, to a suitable working level outside of the oven. This can be achieved by the supporting arrangement being carried by a pair of link arms, bent at a right angle and turnably journalled adjacent to the ceiling of the oven chamber as well as at the side edges of the supporting arrangement. The known supporting arrangement is manually operated by means of a handle at the same time acting on a locking mechanism for adjusting same into different height levels outside of the oven.
As in the other known supporting arrangements discussed above and used for charging of closed chambers, such as cabinets and ovens, the arrangement according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,146 requires a front door for the insertion and retraction of the supporting arrangement into and out from the chamber, respectively, which involves a disadvantage, e.g for space reasons. Doors for cabinets and ovens which have to be opened for the charging of the interior chamber often becomes a great hindrance to the person handling the retraction and/or the insertion of goods out from and into the chamber, respectively. Due to the fact that the door is swung in an outward direction the area of movement of the person is encroached which means that said person has to reach out beyond the door. In case of an oven this may even involve a risk of injury as the oven door is often hot with temperatures of 200.degree. C. and more not being unusual.
Furthermore, the demand for mutually equally bent link arms and/or requirements with regard to control cams and gear rings, as disclosed in the U.S. document just referred to, are cumbersome from a manufacturing point of view and, at the same time, this embodiment is hard to get functioning in a reliable way, in particular in ovens with associated temperature variations. In addition, the known supporting arrangements are less suitable for motorized drive.